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The obsession with adding value to our homes – particularly in London, where those stratospheric buying costs have to be recouped somehow – sees us all furiously extending into side returns, converting lofts and digging down into basements.

But what happens if we just forget all of that, think outside the box and design homes simply because that’s what we want them to look like? Forget all the rules, do something innovative and personal instead – and you may just find your house commands an unprecedented premium over its neighbours.

It’s a theory that holds water according to recent research by the specialist estate agency The Modern House, which has attempted to quantify “the transformative...